Lessig on the move with an interesting public domain initiative: We have launched a petition to build support for the Public Domain Enhancement Act. That act would require American copyright holders to pay $1 fifty years after a work was published. If they pay the $1, the copyright continues. If …

Though I have learned to wait for the other shoe to drop regarding these negotiations, this deal sounds very reasonable: College radio stations have reached an agreement with the recording industry to reduce the fees the stations must pay when they play music online. The agreement, reached Friday, supplants a …

FCC Chariman Powell and Sen. Byron Dorgan, who opposes the media ownership rule changes the FCC voted in yesterday, on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer: TERENCE SMITH: To explain the new ownership rules, we’re joined by the commission’s chairman, Michael Powell. Commissioner Powell, welcome to the broadcast. Would you make …

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Conason on FCC’s Powell in Salon: The driving forces behind Powell, in the White House and the Congress, are indeed highly ideological but hardly conservative in Safire’s sense. Their ideology is corporate conservatism, which treats democracy as a procedural formality that should under no circumstances interfere with the prerogatives of …

Okay, time to own up to a certain lassitude since the war has wound down: there’s still plenty going on, and in many ways this “war after the war” is more important than the war itself because the outcome seems to be much more in doubt. But after the frenzy …

There are few things much tastier in life than a new Monty Alexander CD. The Jamaican jazz pianist may not be a bold innovator, but he always plays with a terrific sense of rhythm (and why not, he IS Jamaican), taste, grace, style, and melodicism. His reggae-based record from ’90, …

Okay, so the FCC vote to deregulate media ownership is done – now what? Dan Gillmor has some ideas: we have to look at the FCC’s latest policy move in two additional contexts. First, consider the recent spate of mergers and acquisitions by the biggest players, to the point where …

When we talked about the case a couple of months ago, it seemed pretty cut and dried to me: the company used material in the public domain and made something new out of it. That’s what the public domain is FOR. Fortunately, the Supreme Court agreed 8-0: The Supreme Court …

“Hello MTV,” the name of new mobile phone service: Music video channel MTV is to venture into the world of mobile phone service provision in Sweden. Beginning this month, MTV Europe is to offer pre-paid mobile services in the Scandinavian country as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) over Telia …